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Strife in Hong Kong


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Hong Kong protests: Tear gas strikes the heart of the city as people defy extradition law

 

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Protesters flooding downtown Hong Kong to stop the Government's proposed extradition law effectively presented the city's leaders with an ultimatum: back down, or risk violent clashes that could be worse than the Occupy movement in 2014.  

Thousands of demonstrators gathered in the heart of the financial hub overnight, and some battled with riot police to prevent lawmakers from debating the bill.  

Overwhelmingly young, many protesters wore surgical masks to hide their identities and plastic goggles to ward off pepper spray, which police fired sporadically throughout the day, along with tear gas, rubber bullets and bean-bag rounds.  

"This is the end game for Hong Kong, it is a matter of life or death. That's why I come," Rocky Chang, a 59-year-old professor, told Reuters news agency.  

"This is an evil law."  Hong Kong's Government, led by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, says it has no intention of giving in to the protesters' key demand: scrapping the proposed law that would allow criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China, among other places.  

Lam has argued the bill is a necessary measure to update the city's rules for dealing with individuals facing criminal charges elsewhere.  "I've never felt guilty because of this," she said in an interview with local broadcaster TVB, her voice cracking and her eyes appearing to well up as she insisted she would never betray Hong Kong.....

 

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12239960

 

Oooer!

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  • 1 month later...

Protests won't get HK independence. China will take more control eventually. Same with Taiwan but the people there will always have a rebellious spirit. They wont win over "hearts and minds" but they will control it. Similar in other places. Catalans and Basque in Spain, Scotland in the UK, one of several places in Russia, parts of India. Not saying all of them are equal in animus and independence mindset but all consider themselves "different" than the government and have or want a certain degree of autonomy.  

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On 6/17/2019 at 5:40 AM, Flashermac said:

I wonder if the people will ever rise up against the People's Republic. Probably not, but then the USSR did collapse eventually ... to be replaced by Putinocracy.

I don't think you will see a western style revolution in China. Has there ever been? The USSR ended under the weight of its own fragile economy. There are countries and cultures where democracy simply doesn't work. Never has lasted and I think never will happen on an ongoing basis. The Chinese as well as the Russian peoples seem to prefer a strong, autocratic leader instead of shouldering their collective selves with governing via electing someone. Both cultures seem to admire strong, people who take leadership. 

Both countries were ruled by Emperors/Monarchies who had supreme power and communism was supposed to be governance by the people and both ended in strong, autocratic, totalitarian leaders (Mao and Stalin) who basically had similar powers to the monarchies they had historically. And still do. Russia has elections but its a joke. The people see in Putin a leader who will restore Russia's pride and they seem to accept that he has supreme power. 

Hong Kong, while under British rule technically were given a lot of autonomy and the people felt as if HK was their own loosely governed 1000s of kilometers away via a Brit governor. The HK Chinese had a fair amount of freedom under British rule and built a few generations of people who only knew semi autonomy and that isn't easy to give up. 

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